


Under My Skin

by starryeyedparadise



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy ends up happy, Bellamy sass, Bellarke feels, Comfort, Comfort Sex, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Unrequited Bellarke, Unrequited Love, canon - TV (pre 2x03), doesn't end in Bellarke - sorry, non traditional romance, set after 2x03 - canon divergent after that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:18:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2616485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedparadise/pseuds/starryeyedparadise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She contemplates walking passed him.  No, she decides to, she does and she doesn’t look back until she hears his voice.  No, it’s not his voice that stops her but the words, or the word rather, that’s falling from his lips.  </p>
<p>Clarke.</p>
<p>She knows she shouldn't, but she helps him anyways.  And it's the end and the beginning of everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boy With the Brown Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Credit to where credit's due...I own nothing but the plot and the original characters.

_Run.  Breathe.  Move.  Fight._  
  
He’s saying it over and over as if it actually means something, as he fights to keep his legs moving, fights to get as far away from those monsters as possible.  But even now as the adrenaline pumps through his veins, he can feel his feet slowing, his body weakening and there is nothing he can fucking do about it. He’s no longer at a fast-paced run, a jog even.  He’s staggering through the forest like an idiot and before long he won’t be moving at all.  
  
He leans up against the tree, catching his breath, his shoulder stinging because he went and got himself beat up again and now he’s in pain.    
  
He tries to tell himself that it’s not his fault but even he isn’t that stupid in his delirious state.  He glances over his shoulder once before looking down where his hand are shaking against his torso.  His fingers are still covered in blood, of course they are, but it’s not slowing down.  It’s not stopping, he realizes and that pisses him off.  The hot and sticky liquid is still pulsing out of him and it suddenly very obvious why he can’t move his fucking feet.  
  
 _Clarke._  
  
He remembers that if Clarke were here, she’d know what to do but she isn’t.  Clarke’s not here because she got herself locked up and no matter what he does he can’t fucking find her and that pisses him off more than the bleeding on his side.  
  
He’s the one who is supposed to be dead, not her, he’s thinking and trying to ignore that it’s bothering him more than it should.  But she’s not dead, or maybe she is and he doesn’t know which is truth and which is a lie he is telling himself to feel better.  But she can’t be dead, he knows she can’t.  Clarke is a fighter and if it were her here with a slice cut out of her skin thanks to a Reaper blade, she as sure as hell would know what to do.  
  
But she isn’t.  
  
And he’s alone for the first time in God knows how long and he hates it.  
  
He needs her and he hates that too.  
  
He wants to sleep.  It sounds inviting, closing his eyes just for a moment and then he can get up and figure out where the hell he is and in which direction to run.  He can’t breathe though and the dull pain in his side is no longer dull, it fucking hurts and he is thinking about who would actually miss him if he just gave up.  
  
No one would know, he thinks.   
  
But he can’t stop, he reminds himself.  He can’t stop because despite the fact that the Ark had come down all high-and-mighty and stripped him of his leadership, despite that, he still has people out there.  His people are waiting for him or maybe they aren’t but he tells himself they are because he can’t afford to think of the alternative.  Clarke is waiting too, he remembers.  And she _needs_ him, she said that once.  
  
And he needs her and the more he reminds himself of that he thinks he can force himself to stand up.  But it’s not working and he just feels himself falling further and further until he’s lying on his stomach, trying to crawl and it’s still getting him nowhere.  
  
And he’s giving up.  He can feel it and he hates it and he calls himself a coward again and again until he thinks he might cry.  He’s alone he reminds himself, no one would see.  But he refuses so he doesn’t and he just lies there until he realizes he’s no longer alone.  Someone is nearby and he can see their boots in the mud and their careful steps through the branches and he knows it’s a grounder.  
  
And he’s filled with rage.  Such uninhibited rage that he moves his hand from his side, holding together the gash that was once his flesh and now it isn’t.  He moves his hand to where his knife is because he ran out of ammo a few miles back and now he lunges for it.  Or he thinks he does when instead he is flopping around like a fish on land and suddenly all he can see is black.  
  
And he’s pretty sure he’s dead.  
  


* * *

  
  
She contemplates walking passed him.  No, she decides to, she does and she doesn’t look back until she hears his voice.  No, it’s not his voice that stops her but the words, or the word rather, that’s falling from his lips.    
  
Clarke.  
  
He’s saying it so desperately that she is stopping in her tracks and she doesn’t know why.  It’s a heartbreaking sound and she’s not sure what it means, only that it means she can’t walk away now and that bothers her.  
  
She’s looking down at him and she knows she should keep walking.  
  
He’s from the Sky Clan, she reminds herself and she watches his hand fall onto her foot and the knife fall to the ground.  She reminds herself again when she notices the blood on his hands and once more when she thinks she might touch him, that she should keep on walking.  
  
But she does touch him and it’s interesting the way his eyes flutter only once, letting her glimpse his brown eyes before he seems to pass out completely.  And she knows she can’t walk away now, at least not without him and she does something she shouldn’t.  
  
She takes him with her.  
  
-

  
He’s heavy and it’s obvious right away that he’s a fighter.  She’s used to heavy men, fighting them, carrying them and dragging them.  Or maybe not carrying them exactly because she certainly isn’t carrying the boy with the brown eyes when she arrives at the bunker and it takes just about everything out of her to get him down there.  
  
She’s huffing, trying to catch her breath as she stares down at him and her hands are shaking as she tries to light the candles.  It’s dim but it’s enough as she inspects the cut on his torso. She apologizes but doesn’t know why as she cuts his shirt off and tosses it aside and she sees the cut is worse than she thought.  It's a gash.    
  
She doesn’t know why he’s not dead already.  
  
He’s a fighter, she reminds herself and she gets to work.  
  
It’s a long time before she realizes it’s not the blood loss he’s dying from it’s the poison.  She’s mad too because she should have seen it sooner.  She's seen it a hundred times before.  The blade had been laced with a particularly nasty Reaper poison.  She knew where the poisons came from and Reapers weren’t smart enough to make it on their own.  But it was deadly and it was no wonder he was dying.  
  
The boy with the brown eyes is lucky she came across him and not Sol.  Sol would have left him for dead.  No, Sol would have stuck his knife in him just to be sure he was dead.  And then he would have kept on walking.  
  
But it’s her who found him and she can’t stop thinking about his brown eyes and the way he says _Clarke_ and she knows if Sol finds her here that she is going to be in worse shit than this guys blood on her hands.  But she helps him anyways, knowing exactly what will save him or at least what she thinks will save him if it hasn’t been too long already.  
  
And it hasn’t been.  
  
And he lives.  Barely.  
  
He’s breathing normally and that’s a good thing because she wasn’t looking forward to hauling his dead body back out of the bunker.  She’s already tired and so she’s turning to leave him even though he may need her, but he doesn’t.  
  
And so she’s in the shower, draining what warm water she can from the system Sol built her and it feels good on her skin.  She wishes she had soap but she doesn’t and she can’t complain.  She hums to the music playing, knowing the juice left in the battery doesn’t have long left but it calms her so she doesn’t think about the silence waiting when it finally runs out.  Just like she doesn’t think about the cold water and the way it takes her breath away now that the warm water is all gone.  
  
And so she turns it off and stands there.  Standing there is taking a while because she’s trying not to think about Axil and she’s trying not to picture him or remember the way that he died.   
  
And how it was the Sky People’s fault.  
  
But she doesn’t want to think about that because she might do something she would regret and so she stops and she stands there and the song is on repeat and she smiles.  
  
But her smile doesn’t last long because she pulls back the curtain and there is suddenly a knife against her throat, her knife to be specific, and the boy with the brown eyes is shoving her against the wall with a furious expression.  
  
She’s not glancing at the knife, she’s glancing at his eyes and then the bandage on his side and then his eyes again and she wants to tell him he’s an idiot for getting up but she doesn’t.  She just waits because she can see he’s going to black out if he stands there much longer and he’s clearly got something to say so she waits for that too.  
  
“Where are they?” he whispers as menacingly as he can but it’s tired, like his eyes, and he’s holding himself up with his hand against the wall next to her head.  She sighs because he’s only making it worse for himself.  But then something happens and he’s even angrier as he slams the wall, this time with force and she knows she flinches.  
  
He’s says it again, _where are they_ and she still doesn’t say anything, only continues to wait.  The knife is tightening on her throat and now she can’t swallow.  So she takes it from him and it’s easy to reverse their positions because he doesn’t expect it and he’s weak and now the knife is against his throat and he’s the one who flinches.  
  
And she smiles when she sees it.  
  
And then she drags him back to the cot and he fights her but not hard enough because she wins.  And he’s lying there, shouting questions but she just pretends she can’t understand him even though she can.  And he knows that because he says:  
  
“I know you can understand me, and I know you know where my people are!”  And he’s right and he’s wrong.  She understands him but she has no idea where his people are.  “One of your men lead my people into a trap.”  
  
Not her man.  
  
“He sent us to die by the hands of the Reapers.  Your people wanted us to die.”  
  
Not her people.  
  
She turns away because she’s tired of listening to his accusations but he grabs her wrist.  His hand is large and his grip is hard and she turns quickly with the knife in her hand and this time he doesn’t flinch.  And they just stare at each other.    
  
The song stops.   
  
The battery is dead.  
  
And now there is only silence.  
  
“Please,” he tries and he means it which surprises her and she suddenly wishes she knew what he was talking about so she could answer him but she doesn’t know so she can’t answer him and there is still silence and she can see it pisses him off.  
  
This time he doesn’t stop her and so she walks away.  But she comes back with a needle because he’s ripped his stitches and she’s grumbling.  He can’t understand her words but he understands her expression when she finishes stitching him back up and so he doesn’t try to get up again.  But he looks away, realizing for the first time since he ambushed her in the shower that she’s naked and she is finally free to put on some clothes.    
  
He doesn’t mention it.  
  
It’s dark when she remembers Sol.  And she debates leaving the boy with the brown eyes, knowing he’ll try to escape.  But she has to go or Sol will come looking for her and that she can’t have so she reluctantly ties him up and he fights her but she doesn’t care because it's for his own good.   
  
And then she’s gone with her conscience weighing heavy on her as she steps out into the night, her steps quiet as she runs.  She runs fast because she’s late.  But her movements are quick and her feet are light and she doesn’t make a sound until she finds the clearing they agreed on.  
  
And he’s already there.  Frowning.  
  
But that’s nothing new, she reminds herself and when he spots her, she thinks maybe she sees a flash of relief but she wouldn’t bet on it.  
  
“Where have you been?” he whispers quickly and the language is familiar.  It’s her own.  
  
“I lost track of time,” she lies and he knows she’s lying because they know each other too well.  
  
“We need to go home, it isn’t safe here.  There are more Sky People to the east and these ones have more guns, bigger guns.  We can’t get caught up in their fight with the Trigeda.”  
  
“More Sky People?” she asks but she knows there are more because she saw them falling from the skies two weeks earlier.  He only nods.  But she can’t go.  Not just because of the Sky Man in her bunker or his brown eyes.  But because she isn't welcome there.  
  
“They’ll never let me through the gates,” she reminds him and if possible his frown deepens.  “I’m banished, Sol.”  
  
“Temporarily banished isn’t banished, Lux.  If you just stopped whining and came home to do your duty like the rest of us-"  
  
“Do my duty!” she’s scoffing.   
  
“You were going to marry Axil.  I don't see the difference?” he reminds her and she can’t help the way her hand is flying up across his face.  But she’s not sorry.  
  
“Don’t you dare,” she whispers and her voice is stuck in her throat because she wants to shout, but she can’t because she doesn’t know who might be listening.  She’s more disciplined than that, she reminds herself.  So she stops herself from losing her temper and she lets loose the hold on the knife on her belt.  
  
“I can’t leave you here.”  
  
“I’ll be fine, like always.  And it’s not like I’ll be sitting around idly.  Mom gave me work to do while I was out here.”  
  
Sol watches her for a while like he is waiting for her to tell him what’s really going on but she knows he will be waiting a long time because she’s not telling him about the boy with the brown eyes in her bunker or that she saved his life.    
  
Because it’s Sol and he wouldn’t understand.    
  
“My battery is dead again,” she changes the subject, reaching in her pack and pulling out the depleted source of her music and he very briefly smiles.  She likes the way his mouth curves because it reminds her of days long passed.  Days she'll never get back no matter how many lies she tells herself.    
  
“It would last longer if you found a new favorite song,” he suggested but she just shrugs and hands him the useless piece of crap in her hand.  Only Sol can fix it for her.  She wouldn’t even know where to start.  He tells her that he’ll bring her a new one in a few weeks and she smiles.  
  
“Look after Aylin, okay?” she asks then because she doesn’t know what else to say and he nods.  He wants to hug her but she doesn’t want his touch.  So she turns and leaves him there and she goes in the exact opposite direction of the bunker in case he follows her.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
And she goes back to the boy with the brown eyes and knows he'll be frowning when she returns.  
  


 

 

 


	2. Poquoson Clan

Bellamy wants to strangle the grounder when she leaves him there tied up.  
  
He’s livid, he’s furious, he’s downright ready to kill her until he falls asleep and all he can think about is staying that way because he’s not hurting.  The sleep is nice and he doesn’t dream or at least he thinks he doesn’t and it’s the first time in too long that he hasn’t seen one of their faces.  
  
Octavia’s face.  Jasper’s face.  Monty’s face.  
  
 _Clarke._  
  
He says her name, he realizes because it wakes him up and the candles in the bunker have almost burnt out.  But he can still see, and he spots the grounder hovering over a table with a pencil in her hand as she scribbles in a notebook and he’s fucking livid again.  
  
“Untie me,” he’s demanding and she seems to expect him to say something like that because she just ignores him, her pencil still scribbling and her brow still furrowed like she’s concentrating or some shit and now he wants to strangle her again.  
  
He’s pulling on the bindings which causes the bed to shake and if she’s not going to acknowledge him then he’s going to annoy the shit out of her until she does.    
  
And she does when she slams down the book and stands up with her hands on her hips and he realizes she’s tall for a girl, not that he still couldn’t take her because she may be tall but he's still taller.  But it’s not a fair fight and until he has use of his hands back so he’s just going to bide his time until he does.  
  
She contemplates it, he can see it and it’s slightly amusing watching her expression change as she argues internally with herself about whether or not to trust him.  She can’t trust him, obviously, but he’s not about to tell her that.  
  
She eventually decides to until him from the cot but his hands are still tied together and he’s about to ask why when she points to the long red line across her neck.  He recalls the knife incident and attacking her in the shower and how easily she subdued him then.  It’s only been a few hours but he’s sure he’s stronger.  Or at least he thinks he’s sure until he tries to sit up and everything gets dizzy.  
  
She pushes him back down, gently he notices and it takes everything in him not to slap her hands away with his bound ones.  She’s looking down at him now with an expression he can’t place.  He decides it’s pity and that only pisses him off further so he looks away.  
  
And then she speaks.  
  
“Who’s Clarke,” she says like they’re friends and she can ask him anything but they’re not and she can’t and she especially can’t ask him about Clarke and so he finds his hands, bound as they are, wrapped tightly around her tiny little throat.    
  
And this time she flinches.  
  
“Don’t fucking say her name,” he says louder than he means to but it gets his point across as he straddles her to the ground and squeezes again.  
  
That’s when she hits him in the balls and he keels over like his soul has been ripped out of his body and he can’t breathe.  And everything hurts.  And there she goes, standing up like he didn’t almost strangle her to death and she brushes off her shirt and just stares at him like he’s an idiot.  
  
Maybe he is.  
  
“Are you finished?” she says and this time he can hear her accent and it’s not like the others he’s heard before.  It’s refined English.  Almost too perfect.   
  
He coughs.  But he nods too because he is starting to realize that in his current state he cannot take on this girl, easily or otherwise.  And so she helps him back into the cot for the third time and then she pulls her knife.  But it’s to cut his bindings so he only freaks out for maybe a split second before the ties are ripped free.  
  
But she sees the freak out, even if it was only for a split second and she laughs as she walks away.  Or at least she starts to before he says something that stops her.  
  
“Please,” he says politely, or as polite-ish as he can.  He’s pretty sure it doesn’t come off as polite as he thinks it does because she’s glaring at him.  “Just tell me where my people are.”  
  
“I don’t have your people, Spaceman, and I don’t know where they are.”  
  
“Your people took--” he starts to say but suddenly something flips and she’s the one yelling this time.  
  
“Those aren’t my people!” she’s shouting but she regrets it because she clears her throat and looks at the ground.  And then she says it again this time it’s calmer and she’s not looking at him.  
  
“I spoke to one of your men,” he reminds her.  “He told me the other grounders took my people from our dropship and then a map he drew us lead us into a fucking trap.  Sound familiar?”  
  
She doesn’t say anything about the trap or the man but she frowns and says “Grounders?” like she’s never heard it.  Maybe she hasn’t but he doesn’t have the patience to explain it.  
  
“A hundred of my people came down from the Ark and we tried to make peace with your people,” she’s glaring at him so he corrects himself though he’s not even sure what to correct it to so he just says grounders again which she seems to figure out without further explanation.   
  
“The Trigeda are the _grounders_ you speak of,” she says, stressing his term for the earth born savages they’ve been at war with for the last month and she sighs.  “I’m not part of the Trigeda Clan.  I’m not part of any of the Woodland Clans so I wouldn't know who has your people,” she clarifies and it makes sense why she looks cleaner and much less savage than the others.  
  
“Well if you’re not a woodland grounder then what the hell are you?  You’re clearly not from the Ark,” he says and she laughs but she doesn’t mean to and he can tell because she’s composing herself and looking away again.  
  
“I’m Poquoson, we’re from the coast, far from here and far from your quarrel with the Trigeda,” she explains and he remembers Lincolns book and Finn talking about a grounder clan that was safe and he wonders.  He hopes.  
  
“There is a clan there, a woman named Luna leads it,” the name seems to spark something in her eyes because she is looking at him, her eyes are locked on his and she walks towards him.  
  
“How do you know about Luna?” she asks him, crossing her arms over her chest as she shifts.  
  
“Lincoln told us we would be safe there.  We tried to make it there when your--” he stops because he remembers she’s not one of those grounders or so she says and he doesn’t feel like getting yelled at again.  “--when the Trigeda grounders came to our camp and tried to massacre us.”  
  
She thinks about this for a while, his words, because she’s pacing and then she shakes her head, stopping right by the bed so he has to strain his head to look up at her.  
  
“Sky People wouldn’t be welcomed there, not now.  Not after what happened,” she says but her eyes have a far-off look about them.    
  
“But they might have gone there.  If one of them had Lincoln’s map--”  
  
“Lincoln was wrong to send you there,” she says forcefully and there is anxiety in the way her fingers fidget and her foot taps.  “If your people walk into Poquoson territory, Spaceman, I would give up any hope of seeing them again.”  
  
Sinking.  It’s the feeling in his stomach, deep down in the pit of it and he doesn’t understand what he’s hearing.  For all he knows this is the first Poquoson grounder he’s met and so why the fuck would they have a problem with the hundred because when have they ever been more than a days walk away from camp?    
  
“Why?” he says and it comes out as a shout.  “What have we done to you?!  Lincoln says Luna was a friend.  Maybe she’d protect us.”  
  
“She wouldn’t.”  
  
“And how do you know!?” he’s shouting again and he wishes she was shouting too but she’s not and she’s just standing there calmly like he’s the one overreacting or something.  
  
“Because she’s my mother,” she replies like it’s an acceptable answer.  But it’s not.  
  
“And why would Lincoln tell us she would take us in if she wouldn’t?”  
  
“She would, or she would have before.  But not now.  And they have good reason.”  
  
“What. Reason.” he grounds out because there is no good fucking reason for mass murdering his people and her eyes can’t meet his.  
  
“Your people killed my brother Jericho, and-" she pauses and sighs heavily.  "And Michael, who rules the Poquoson with my mother.  His son was murdered as well."  
  
“And the grounders killed a lot of peoples’ sons!  And daughters!”  He was angry and he didn’t care that she saw it and when he tried to stand because he hated feeling small and beneath her, she just gently pushed him back down.  And he really needed her to stop treating him like a child.  
  
“Stop getting up before you rip your stitches again.  I won’t sew you up a third time,” she warned him and he believed she was serious so he didn’t move even though he wanted to.  He wanted to leave but every step was agonizing and no matter how hard he tried to hide it the grounder in front of him wasn’t buying his bullshit.  
  
“For what it’s worth,” she says and he scoffs because the word of grounder is worth less than nothing at this point and time but she keeps talking.  “It’s unlikely your people would have reached Poquoson territory before the Trigeda or even Mountain Men found them first.”  
  
 _Mountain Men._  
  
It sends chills up his spine and he doesn’t know why he hadn’t remembered it earlier.  They’d been warned about the Mountain Men and at the time Bellamy hadn’t been thinking of anyone but the grounders for weeks.  He remembers that grounders fear them but there is no fear in this grounder’s eyes.  Only something indiscernible.  
  
“For your sake, I hope it’s the Trigeda,” she says and he only confirms his thoughts.  
  
When she walks away he is angry but not as angry as he was before.  But something has changed in her demeanor and for whatever reason he doesn’t try to argue with her any longer.  And he believes her, which might be the worst part of it all.  
  
They don’t speak for a long time and the silence seems awkward after their near shouting match, though Bellamy remembers he was the only one shouting.  He realizes why she wasn’t letting him get out of the bed because maybe it was for his own good but he doesn’t admit that, not even to himself because he knows the first moment he gets he’s leaving no matter what condition he's in.  Because he has people to find and Clarke is out there and Octavia and he's not letting this grounder keep him from them.  
  
He wants to ask her about the coast though, about the ocean, because maybe there's a safe place to go when all this shit is done.  He’s having a complete lapse in judgement when he starts to open his mouth but suddenly there is a loud banging on the hatch door and the grounder girl is only slightly less startled than he is.  
  
She’s frowning when she looks out the hatch door and he notices the change in her stance and the worry in her eyes which is a look he hadn’t seen before and that makes him sit up even though she told him not to.  She grabs the knife at her waist, her grip tight and it makes Bellamy think he might need a weapon too because clearly he can’t protect himself from a grounder girl how the hell is he supposed to protect himself from something she’s scared of?  
  
But there is nothing aside from a candlestick and it’s insufficient but it will have to do.  So he grabs it and the hatch is opening and before realizes what is happening the grounder is pinned to the floor by another grounder, this one is a guy.  He’s big, maybe as big as Bellamy but right now the grounder is at a hundred percent and he’s only at fifty, maybe sixty if he could find something better than this fucking candlestick.  
  
The grounder guy looks at him and it’s clear he isn’t happy about what he’s seeing.  It’s the first time that Bellamy notices that even though the grounder girl is being pinned down by the grounder guy, she’s got her knife very roughly against the grounder guy’s neck and neither one of them are trying to end the stalemate they’ve created.  
  
And Bellamy has a pretty good idea that whatever the hell is going on right in front of him is most assuredly his fault.  But he wouldn’t know because when they start shouting at one another it’s not in English and he can’t understand a fucking word of it.   
  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  
“What the hell is this?” Sol is hissing and Lux just wants him to shut up and get the hell off of her because he is heavy and overreacting.  
  
“Get off of me,” she’s shouting in English and then again in her own tongue and he doesn’t obey her in either language so she presses the knife harder to his throat.  This time she thinks he gets the message because he rolls off of her quickly but he’s standing over her and he’s staring down at her with that look.    
  
“I knew you were lying.  But I never thought this--” he whispers and he’s not only pissed but he’s betrayed and she can’t bear to look in his eyes when he’s looking at her like that.  “What the hell are you thinking bringing this Sky trash here?”  
  
She briefly looks at the space between Sol and the boy with the brown eyes and she knows they both see her take a step between them, but she only see’s Sol’s reaction and it’s not happy.  He’s furious and she expected that but what she wasn’t expecting was for him to find her here with one of the Sky People and very little room for explanations.  
  
He doesn’t want explanations.  He wants blood but she’s not giving him that.  
  
“He was dying,” she’s saying and it’s a mistake because now her brother thinks she’s weak.  “He was dying Solomon,” she says again, this time with more force.  “Was I supposed to keep walking, watch him suffer?”  
  
“Yes,” he tells her and she wants to roll her eyes because of course that’s what he says and she should have known.  “He’s one of their leaders, Lux.  His kind, his people are the reason Jericho is dead.”  
  
Jericho.  Jericho was dead because of his own hubris, because of his own stupidity and it had nothing to do with Sky People.  But she doesn’t say that because she has before and it didn’t go over well then and it won’t go over well now.   
  
“Jericho made his choice.  He went against the council and against the clan.”  
  
“Like you are now?”  
  
“Don’t let your hatred blind you,” she warns because he often does.  He has every reason to hate them.  But he won’t get anywhere near this one.  
  
“My hatred?” he asks her condescendingly.  “I know you haven’t forgotten what his kind did to Axil.  You may not care that our brother is dead, but expected Axil’s death to stir something in you.  It’s his kind that killed your lover.  Remember him?” he reminds her like she needs reminding but she certainly doesn’t.  She’s angry and she tries to hide it but they still know each other too well.  
  
Axil’s death was as much her fault as the Sky Clan’s.  She begged him to protect Jericho, even though it was not their fight.  And both of them had died for it.  Her guilt was enough of a reminder, she didn’t need Sol’s reminder as well.  
  
“You need to leave,” she says simply but he doesn’t budge.  “Just go home, Sol.  This one doesn’t need to die.  None of them need to die.”  
  
“You’re putting an outsider before your clan, Lux.  That’s not how we do things,” he warns her and she’s done being calm.  
  
“Killing innocent strangers is not how we do things either!” she’s shouting back because her brother doesn’t understand what an idiot he has become.   
  
“You think he’s innocent!?” Sol is shouting now too.  “He’s their leader.  He condemned the Trigeda to death.  Hell it might as well have been him who put the bullet in our brother and you want to protect him?  We need to take him prisoner.  If we take him now--”  
  
“And what would we stand to gain?” she asks and he doesn’t respond because she knows she has a point.  “This is not our war, Sol,” she replies calmly.  “I will not bring the Trigeda war to Poquoson.  I may be banished but I haven’t forgotten my place.  I won’t bring our clan into a war we will not win.”  
  
“Then we will trade him for our men.  They’ve got them, at their Camp Jaha--” he says, desperate because he knows she is right.   
  
“What are you saying about my camp?” the boy with the brown eyes is saying now because it might be the first word he actually understands when Sol mentions Camp Jaha.  Sol isn’t happy about the spaceman speaking because he’s yelling and Sol’s yelling and now they’re all yelling.    
  
Tensions are high because Sol is now close enough to hit the guy but Lux steps between them and he hits her instead.  And then her knife is once again against her brother’s throat and they’re back where they started.  
  
“Touch him and I will kill you myself,” she’s saying, this time in English so both of them know to back the fuck off.  “He’s under my protection.”  
  
“Immunity,” Sol scoffs, in his English as well.  “You’re giving this scum immunity?”  He’s pacing angrily now.  “You’re abusing your power, Lux.  He’s a Sky Man!”  
  
“And a human being!  Like the rest of us.” she counters and both of them are staring at her now because her voice just cracked a little.    
  
“You think Michael is going to accept your decision?  You’re still banished.  He won’t accept this even from you.”  
  
“I don’t care about Michael,” and it’s true because she wants to hate Michael for the hell he’s put her through.  But Sol is partially right.  But so is she.  “Our mother will listen and she will do what is right.  And what I’m doing is the right thing, even if you can’t see that,” she explains and this time she’s calm.  She thinks he just might be calm too even though he hasn’t taken his eyes from the man behind her.  
  
“You’re making a mistake,” he says and it disappoints her because she wanted him to be on her side, like always but he’s not and he’s backing away.  “These people don’t care about us.  The second you let your guard down, you’ll be in that camp and they won’t be talking about peace.”  
  
“And you think war is the better way?  The Trigeda have lost three hundred, we’re lucky to have only lost a few.  I don’t want war in our territory.  And if you’re smart, like I know you are Solomon, you will not bring it to our door.”  
  
He is smart and he knows it and she knows it.  She knows what she is saying is right and no matter how angry Sol is about Jericho he has to think about Clan first.  Clan before everything.  And that’s what she’s doing.  She’s not holding grudges about Jericho or Axil.  She’s thinking of her clan, and the boy with the brown eyes is staring at her with something other than disgust and she hopes he understands what she’s sacrificing to protect him - no, to protect her clan.  
  
“Do what you have to do, Lux.”  
  
“Sol,” she pleads when he starts to leave but he’s jerking her hand off of his shoulder.  “Solomon!” she shouts after him but it’s to no avail and the hatch closes behind him and she’s alone.  
  
No, she’s with the space man, the boy with the brown eyes and the confused expression.  He’s holding a candlestick and she wants to laugh because it’s a terrible choice for a weapon.  But he just holds it and she stands there and they just look at each other and she thinks.  
  
She thinks maybe they’ve come to an unspoken understanding but she can’t be sure.  She doesn’t know this man and she doesn’t trust him but she’s helping him and she’s staking everything on being right.  And so she just hopes she’s right.  
  
And she walks away.    
  
Or she tries to but he stops her with his voice.  No, it’s his words.  One word.   
  
“Lux.”   
  
It’s her name.  
  
She turns and he’s closer than he was a moment ago and he’s still holding his stupid candlestick and she’s still holding her knife and they stare at eachother.  
  
“Your name is, Lux,” he repeats this time and she nods.  “I’m Bellamy,” he says but she can see he’s reluctant to shake her hand so they just stand there awkwardly.  She is thinking it’s a weird name, even for a spaceman but it’s better than ‘boy with the brown eyes.’  She thinks she just might call him spaceman instead.   
  
And as if on cue they both put their weapons away and an understanding is made, at least for the moment.  She doesn’t know if he trusts her but she thinks he believes her enough that she won’t hurt him unless he tries to escape again.   
  
But he doesn’t.  
  
He stays.  For now.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact - Poquoson is actually a real place in Virginia. 
> 
> Based on Lincoln's description of the area where Luna's clan is, I just made a decision and named my clan after it. Trigeda is one of the woodland clans mentioned in Season 2, Indra the badass being one of their members as well Lincoln and Nyko. The Poquoson territory is largely the coast of Virginia and Southern Delaware as well as some of North Carolina, but they have several factions as you will find out. 
> 
> Anyways - leave me some feedback if you wish!


	3. The Ambassador

 

It’s been four days in the woods and Bellamy decides he needs to get out of this damn bunker.  Lux seems only slightly reluctant because he’s pretty sure she is desperate for some surface time as well.  So she decides they can go out but only for a few hours and only he if promises not to rip his stitches because she’s not sewing him up again.  
  
He promises.    
  
He’s not in too much pain when they climb out, and there is only a slight twinge in his side when they’re walking through the forest.  She keeps looking back at him when he steps on a branch or brushes against a particularly loud bush. She calls him something in her language which he assumes is akin to ‘loud oaf’ or ‘idiot’ though she doesn’t bother to translate for him.  
  
They stop at a small boulder and below is a spring.  Bellamy is staring longingly at it because two hours in the sun has made him miserably hot.  She doesn’t waste a second as she starts pulling off her tank and pants and then jumps gleefully into the water.  He waits for her to resurface, her dark hair slicked back as she wipes the water from her face.  She’s looking up at him expectantly and he realizes she’s waiting for him to jump too.    
  
It’s not high by any means, but he’s not so sure about how deep the water is.  And she clearly doesn’t know that space people have no clue how to swim.    
  
So he just stands there.  
  
“Are you scared of a little water, Spaceman?” she mocks with that accent he’s still not used to and beckons him in with her hand.   
  
He walks over to the edge and the cool reward of the water is looking farther and farther away the longer he waits.    
  
“You _can_ swim can’t you?” she asks but her question is answered with a brief look on his part.  “Oh.  No I guess you wouldn’t, would you?  Well it’s not all that hard.  Just jump and I’ll help you with the rest.”  She can see his hesitation to that statement and laughs.  “I haven’t kept you alive for the last four days only to drown you now.”  
  
He’s not so sure.  In fact, he is thinking about running now.  He doesn’t dare glance around because she’s looking right at him and she’s not stupid.  He doesn’t know where he is, or how long he could survive without food or water.  For all he knows, she could have taken him miles in the opposite direction of Camp Jaha.    
  
So he’ll bide his time.  
  
And while he bides his time, he jumps.  
  
And the water is so cold it takes his breath away and he suddenly remembers he can’t swim and so his arms are flailing.  He’s pretty sure he looks like an idiot but he’s not worried about that, he’s worried about finding the surface so he can breathe.  There are arms around him then, small arms that are wrapped around his chest from behind and propelling him upwards, higher and higher until he breaks the surface.  
  
And he breathes.  
  
He’s taking in heavy breaths, pulling himself away from her but she doesn’t let go as she balances herself between the small rippled waves.  He’s gasping, but not because he can’t figure out how to keep his body above the water without her help, but because it’s cold - really cold, and it momentarily takes his breath away.  
  
“I got you,” she’s whispering.  “You’re not going to drown.  Now--,” she tells him, positioning herself in front of him so they are face to face and his head is barely staying above the water.  “The first thing you need to know is that you should never panic when you’re in the water.”  
  
“Easy for you to say,” he says and the fear comes across in his voice but she doesn’t laugh and for that he is grateful.    
  
“You’re just going to exhaust yourself if you panic.”  
  
He nearly had panicked under the water, feeling the air leave his lungs as he plunged beneath the surface.  He had seen people swimming, in old films and pictures.  But his first instinct as he became trapped beneath the water as to panic.  
  
She taught him then and Bellamy had to admit she was a good teacher.  It seemed to come naturally, first floating then kicking and treading water until he was able to keep his head above the water without assistance.    
  
He didn’t want to look weak, he was thinking to himself.  He didn’t want this grounder to think he couldn’t keep himself alive, especially after she’d already had to save him once.  He didn’t want to be in debt to her twice.  
  
Floating is the easiest and he has to admit he kind of enjoys lying on his back, looking up at the sky through small holes in the canopy of trees.  The sun seeps down on them both and it’s the most relaxed he has been in who knows how long.  He knows he can’t stay like this.  He has to get away.  Clarke and the others aren’t wading it the water.  They’re looking for him, or he hopes they’re looking for him.  Just as he should be looking for them as well.    
  
The sun is high in the sky when she tells him that they have to leave.  Instinctively, Bellamy tenses up as he climbs the rocky boulder, thinking there is danger.  But she’s slow about her movements and doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about their surroundings as she starts pulling on her clothes.    
  
There is no danger.  Only them and he realizes this just as he realizes she is hardly wearing anything at all.  Undergarments, plain and fitted to her body and it’s as if the fact that she is a woman is finally apparent.  He’d seen her as a grounder before.  But standing before him in her well-fitted trousers and thin garment top, there was little to distract him from her feminine figure.  
  
She doesn’t notice him glancing at her or if she does, she doesn’t let on and she simply gathers her pack and then reaches her arm out to him to help him up over the side of the boulder. He’s still in pain and that’s the only reason he takes her outstretched arm and she hauls him over.  
  
She doesn’t ask before she places her hands on him.  In fact, she is pulling him towards her, her hands on his hips and then gently pulling the now soaked bandage from his side and she frowns.  He looks down, noticing the stitches have ripped but this time only slightly.  She’s pissed but she knows it’s her fault, and he knows she knows this because she doesn’t yell at him like she did the time before.  She only pulls something out of her bag - a vial of some sort - and then starts wiping a green salve on his skin and it smells horrible.  
  
“Sorry,” she tells him, massaging the salve into his cut and he flinches.  “This will help keep it from hurting until we can get you back.”  
  
He doesn’t want to go back.  
  
He wants to find his people. He needs to find his people and he feels fine.  He tries to tell her this but she only frowns.  He momentarily thinks he could make a run for it.  But even with his new found revelation that she is in fact a woman and even though she’s tall he could probably take her, he knows he can’t.  Because there is still the fact that he has no fucking idea where he is.  And he still thinks he can convince her to let him go if he just bides his time.  
  
And so he’s biding.  
  
He lets her finish bandaging him and he moves his eyes away from the knife on her hip and he lets her lead him back into the woods and back to his prison cell.  She’s told him not to call it that, several times in fact, but he can’t help but feel like the walls of the bunker are a cage and he’s suddenly the pet of this grounder girl with the hazel eyes and the hips he’s never noticed before until today.  
  
He’d rather be dead, he thinks and it’s true.    
  
He just hopes none of his people are in cages.    
  


* * *

 

Lux makes a decision when they return to the bunker.    
  
She’s fixing some food, what’s left of the two rabbits she caught in her snares, and as it cooks - she thinks.  She thinks of Axil and she thinks of Sol.  She thinks of what her people would do if they knew what she was thinking, of what she was planning to do.  
  
She thinks Axil would be on her side.  She thinks he would agree that what she is doing is best for her clan and the future of any peace she means to garner between the Poquoson and the Sky Clan.  But Sol does not agree.  He wants revenge, even if that means war at the cost of more lives.    
  
But that’s something she won’t bear.   
  
She sets the table and Bellamy Blake watches her.  She only has two plates and two cups.  But she doesn’t have more than one fork so one of them will have to eat with their hands.  He doesn’t get up until the food is on the plate and this time as he stands, he shows her that he doesn’t struggle. He wants her to know that he’s feeling better.  He wants her to know that he’s ready to leave.  
  
There is only the sound of their chewing and she wishes her batteries hadn’t died.  But she can only blame herself.  She really did need a new favorite song, one that she didn’t play on repeat for hours on end before her music device ran dry.  So for now, she’ll deal with the uncomfortable silence and the weight of her decision as it hangs over them both.  
  
And then she tells him.  
  
“I want to help you,” she says and it’s not enough to distract him from the food so she elaborates.  “I meant what I said to my brother, about you being under my protection.”  
  
“And what good will that do in a forest full of Trigeda?” he counters.    
  
“The Poquoson and the woodland clans have an alliance.  If you are under my protection, you cannot be harmed without repercussions,” she explains for him and he considers it for a moment before furrowing his brown.    
  
“Your brother, he said you’d given me immunity?  What gives you that power?”  He’s asking her questions she’s not sure she should answer.  But if she doesn’t, he may not go along with her plan and she’ll end up watching him run away and get himself killed.   
  
“Because I will one day rule the Poquoson, I have certain responsibilities and a certain amount of power,” she tells him and she can see he is taken aback by her statement.  She wants to be insulted but she can’t because he’s a Sky Man and the Sky Clan doesn’t understand their ways.  She can’t fault him for that.  “I am in charge of peace between all clans here - an ambassador if you will.  And because I have both Poquoson and Trigeda blood, I am granted immunity wherever I go in between our territories, as well as the ability to grant immunity to anyone I see fit.”  
  
“And you saw fit to grant it to _me_?” he scoffs and she laughs too because he clearly doesn’t understand.  
  
“Spaceman, if I’d not granted you immunity when I did, my brother would have killed you.  Our brother died by the hands of your people and Solomon can only see that.  He’s blinded by his desire for revenge.”  
  
“And you’re not?”  
  
“I--” she starts but she doesn’t know how to answer.  She is angry and there was a time where she wanted the Sky People to pay.  But she can see through the anger and she knows entering into a war with them is one she would lose.  “There are more important things.  And as I told Sol, our brother was foolish and blinded by more than prejudice.”  
  
She watches Bellamy, who is listening to her words intently and she can see now that he is in fact a leader.  He’s considering her help and if he needs it and what it might cost his people.  But he doesn’t know where his people are and she can help with that.  
  
“I have contacts, people who will give me information about your friends,” she whispers and his eyes flicker to up to meet hers.  
  
“At what cost?” he asks then. “You help me but what do _you_ gain?”  
  
“Potentially avoiding the slaughtering of my people,” she replies immediately because it’s the truth.  It’s what she wants.  “I know these woods and I know the Poquoson land is vast.  I can help barter for a safer place, a place farther away from the Mountain Men’s reach, where your people can settle.”  
  
“There are people, more important people who have more power than me now.  I can’t promise anything on their part.  And I can’t promise they’ll even want peace.”  
  
“Well I can promise to help you find your people, the ones you lost.  And when we find them, we can worry about your elders.  I can’t imagine they want war.  They came here to find peace, did they not?”  
  
She sees him consider this and then he nods.  She thinks she can make this work.  She thinks she can end bloodshed.  And if she can, then maybe she can go home, without the weight of her choices hanging over her head.  She thinks of her mother and she knows this is what she would do, what she has done in the past, to keep from going to war.  And if she can do it, then maybe Lux can do it too.  
  
“So how will this work?” he asks her and she wants to smile because maybe this will work.  
  
“I have to meet with the Trigeda.  I’ll tell them my terms and then find out about your people.  I should be back in less than a day,” she tells him and she can see his straight lined mouth frowning when he realizes he’ll have to stay behind.  “It’s less than a day,” she reiterates but he is still not happy about it.  “I can’t promise your safety until I’ve made this deal.”  
  
“I can stay hidden,” he suggests and she can’t help but laugh.    
  
“You can barely stay _standing_ for more than a few hours let alone get through the forest without attracting every scout in a five mile radius.  Do you have any idea how loud you are?” she adds when he scoffs.  “You’re loud and you’ll get us both killed if I take you.”  
  
He agrees, but he does not agree that he is loud because he doesn’t think he is.  But he is.    
  
Lux then wants to ask him about his people, about the Sky Clan that fell from space and the hundred that he lead before they got there.  But she’s not sure how to ask without pissing him off again.  So despite her better judgement she starts the way she did last time.  
  
“So,” she says slowly.  “Who’s Clarke.”  
  
He doesn’t try to strangle her this time and he doesn’t even look all that upset that’s she’s brought up the name again.  He only looks sad.  Or at least she guess it’s sadness in his eyes, disappointment maybe or shame.  Shame, she decides as she waits for his response.  It’s a long time before he looks up, however, and she wonders if this Clarke girl is dead and that’s why it’s so hard for him to speak about her.  
  
“She was--” he pauses and shakes his head.  “She is the other leader of my people.  She and I, we sort of worked together, to keep the peace, to make decisions.  And now I don’t know where she is, or hell - if she’s even alive.”  
  
“You were separated?” she asks him and he nods, shrugs, he doesn’t know.    
  
“The grounders attacked our camp,” he starts with a far-off look in his eyes.  “The Trigeda,” he corrects.  “We were surrounded and outnumbered.  We had no way to hold them back with so little ammo left.  So she had an idea.  Clarke decided we could try to launch our drop-ship and it would give off enough rocket fuel to--” he paused and she knew why.  She’d heard about the Trigeda.  She knew how many had been killed and how.  “It worked, it killed anyone close to the ship.  But I wasn’t in there.  Some of us didn’t make it.”  
  
“She locked you out.”  
  
“She did what she had to do!,” he says defensively but she doesn’t flinch at the anger in his voice because she understands.    
  
“Of course she did.  She had to protect your people.  Even if it meant a sacrifice she didn’t want to make.”  He nods because she’s right but there is more to the story and she lets him continue.  
  
“We came back to the drop-ship and they weren’t there.  None of them were.  It was like they disappeared.”  
  
At first she is going to suggest that perhaps they had tried to seek new shelter.  But when he says ‘disappeared’ she feels her stomach sink slightly.  The word evokes memories she has shut in the back of her mind for not nearly long enough.  Things begin to resurface, flashes behind her eyes and the screams.  The screams.  
  
She hopes she’s wrong.  
  
She doesn’t tell him why she hopes that.   
  
She doesn’t tell him that if the Mountain Men have his people, if they have Clarke, then he is probably never going to see her again.    
  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for checking out my story. I hope you're enjoying it. And don't worry - there will be more people showing up soon. More familiar faces too! Thanks!


	4. Skai Kru

Lux was losing her patience.

Indra was the leader of her own faction of Trigeda. There were many factions, but Lux knew it would be impossible to sit them all down and agree on a pact in just an afternoon. Right now all she wanted was information. And to send a warning.

Indra hadn’t been so understanding. But Lux had expected as much.

“Do you know what you’re asking?” Indra says and Lux is annoyed because she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t. “The only thing my people want to do with the Sky Clan is their heads on pikes.”

“I know that. But I am asking for a little trust here,” Lux explains but Indra looks neither trusting nor interested in agreeing to the terms Lux is about to put in front of her. But it doesn’t matter because Lux has diplomatic immunity and now so does Bellamy Blake. Indra looks to a young girl, a girl Lux noticed when she arrived at camp and it’s clear this girl is an outsider, a Sky person herself but she doesn’t not seem to be a prisoner. Indra says her name, Octavia, and she tells her to go. The girl looks at Lux but obeys the command and Lux follows the girl’s familiarity until she’s out of sight. “These people aren’t going anywhere. Are you telling me that you want to condemn your people to death by warring with the Sky Clan?”

“They don’t know this land. They are the trespassers here.” Indra is arguing with passion in her voice because she’s still furious, still mourning for her lost comrades and Lux understands this because she too is still mourning. But none of that matters right now.

“You say that but you have one in your _camp_?” Lux addresses and Indra’s frown is a fierce one.

“She is another story entirely.”

“Indra, listen. Together our clans can set an example. I am not proposing we be friends with the Sky Clan,” she stresses to the woman across from her. “We just need peace. We don’t need more dead.”

“And so I just let them live in my territory, on land that has been part of my Clan for a century?”

Indra has a point and she knows it. The Sky Clan cannot stay on Tigeda land and after the battle at the drop-ship, none of the woodland clans would be likely to fork over their land willingly. But that’s why Lux has a plan.

“My mother’s faction is made up of a lot of land,” she explains and she can see Indra’s frown deepen.

“You cannot be serious?!” Indra scoffs. “Luna would never agree to this.”

“She won’t have a choice for much longer,” Lux reminds her because it seems as if everyone has forgotten that the Poquoson leadership will soon change. “I will be the clan leader and the land will be mine to do with as I please.”

“The faction would rebel, and then Michael’s son would be in charge and your land would go to him--”

“Not if I marry him first,” Lux says and she can feel her stomach ache at the words. Even Indra catches the falter in Lux’s demeanor and they both know the reason.

“Leith is not _Axil_ ,” Indra reminds her but she doesn’t need reminding. She knows. She knows that Axil’s younger brother is everything the opposite of the man she had grown to care for so deeply.

“All I need is a majority in the faction council. If I can get their blessing, then I can give the Sky Clan somewhere far from Trigeda land, so far you would never even have to see them.”

Indra isn’t convinced. Lux can see the uncertainty in her eyes. But there is also fear that this could all backfire. But Lux doesn’t show that she has the same fears. She stays confident that this could work. Because if she’s not confident, then no one will trust that she can do what is necessary. Even if that means marrying Leith. Even if it means giving up her freedom for peace.

“I’ll have to speak with the others, you know that,” Indra says but it’s enough. Lux nods, but not too eagerly, just enough to show that she’s grateful as she takes Indra’s hands into her own. She squeezes them and nods.

“That is all I ask,” she whispers but Indra smiles because she knows there is more.

“There is something else you came here for. So what is it?” she says but there is a lightness in her voice that Lux knows will disappear when the question is asked.

“I need to know what happened to kids from the drop-ship. To the rest of them, whoever was left,” Lux asks carefully and as she predicted the smile fades. “Are they dead?”

She doesn’t answer at first which leads Lux to believe that something is wrong. If they had left Tigeda territory by choice, Indra would have no opposition to answering her honestly. But the answer is far worse than she expects.

“No, at least not yet,” she tells her and before Lux can ask if they are being held prisoner she sees Indra’s eyes flash with something akin to shame.

Lux looks around, she sees the emptiness of the camp and she knows.

“Mountain Men?” she asks and the words catch in her throat because she can barely say them without the memories flashing intrusively behind her eyes. She doesn’t want it to be true but when Indra doesn’t reply she knows it is.

And there is suddenly only dread filling in the pit of her stomach when she realizes what comes next. And she wants nothing to do with what comes next. Because she’s been through it all before and it breaks people. It broke her.

“I have to go,” she says absent-mindedly and Indra’s hand still hasn’t moved from her own. She’s looking at her like her mother does.

It’s a warning, she knows that. They both know that Lux has no business going back there if that’s what she’s planning on doing. But Lux doesn’t know if that’s what she is planning because all she can think of is telling Bellamy that his friends are as good as dead. It’s not a pleasant thought but she promised she would find out. She owes him an answer.

And so she leaves and she knows Indra will talk to the other clans. She has faith in that much at least. What she’s worried most about as she begins the long trek back to the bunker is what’s she’s prepared to sacrifice for people she barely knows. She can prevent war, maybe. Maybe she can prevent war if she just does her duty, just like her brother said.

But something tells her this wasn’t what Sol had in mind.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s anxious and so he begins to pace.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Lux left the bunker and so he has no idea when she’ll return. He slept hard, and long, and he hardly remembered anything except eating dinner and deciding to maybe trust Lux to help him find his people. And then there was sleep.

And it didn’t take him long to realize that she drugged him.

Of _course_ she drugged him, he thinks and he’s grumbling to himself as he paces the bunker and looks for things to throw. But the bunker is tidy and pristine and she keeps it that way for a reason and he suddenly feels guilty when he throws a canteen and it knocks shit over.

He doesn’t want to feel guilty because she’s the one who drugged him and now he has to wait around, holding his side because it still hurts, trying to figure out if she’s going to come back or if he’s going to be abandoned in some bunker in the woods where no one will ever find him.

He’s not worried because she seems like she can handle herself just fine. But he barely knows her so he’s not sure. And he thinks she may be the only link to finding out what happened to his people.

He decides he doesn’t like feeling this dependent on someone else. Not even Clarke. Clarke depended on _him_ to do what needed to be done, to do the things no one else wanted to do. He wonders if this is how they felt waiting around, wondering if he’d succeed or never come back. No, he doesn’t like it at all.

Nightfall comes and he’s sure something has happened because she said less than a day and by that he assumed she’d be back by nightfall. But she’s not back and now he’s picking up the canteen and putting it in the pack along with food and water because maybe he’s going to have to make a run for it after all.

And then he hears a noise. And it’s not the hatch and that’s why it worries him. Because she’s quiet and doesn't make a sound with her swift feet and lights steps. It’s a sound he knows and that’s what causes his heart to leap.

It’s a gun.

And grounders don’t use guns.

He grabs the pack and throws it over his shoulder. He climbs the short ladder to the bunker’s hatch and he unlocks it slowly. He pauses, considering the scenario in which these aren’t his people and he’s about to become a sitting duck to someone else with a gun pointed straight at him. But he’s impatient and he doesn’t want to wait, so he grabs something heavy and he rolls his eyes when he realizes it’s that fucking candlestick again, and he opens the hatch.

He’s overwhelmed by shouts, but it’s English and he can see the guns pointed at him and the ratty clothes that indicate that these are Sky People - that these are his people. Well, they aren’t his people exactly, but they are from the Ark and so he drops the candlestick in the leaves and allows them to approach him with his hands above his head in surrender.

Two of them are members of the guard - he recognizes them from Camp Jaha. The other two are citizens. And neither have guns. Instead they have something else and it causes his relief to falter.

It’s Lux.

She’s bleeding from her left shoulder but she’s fighting the two men holding either of her arms. And he realizes what the gunshot was. They’ve shot her and he doesn’t know why that pisses him off so much. Maybe it’s because she’s come back which means maybe she’s made contact with the Trigeda after all.

“Mr. Blake?” one of them says and it’s a woman he doesn’t remember the name of and he nods. “Has this grounder been keeping you captive?” she asks him, pointing her gun at Lux who is still struggling to escape but the men are larger and there are two of them and she’s shot. But she’s still putting up a pretty good fight. “Mr. Blake?” the woman asks again but this time there is more force in her question and Bellamy snaps out of it.

“No,” he insists. “She’s not a threat.”

“Tell that to my men back there.” The guardswoman's voice is full of loathing and she hits Lux in the stomach with her rifle.

Bellamy hauls himself out of the bunker and back onto land and he steps towards the girl who is now keeled over trying to catch her breath. He doesn’t like it. This situation feels wrong on so many levels and he no longer feels relieved to be found, he feels like he’s being taken captive again. And he is because he doesn’t notice the two guards taking hold of his arms and binding them behind his back.

And now he’s angry.

“What the hell are you doing?!” he’s shouting and pulling but he’s weak and so he goes down when what of them kicks him in the gut as well and he can’t seem to find his breath.

“Both of you are under arrest. You violated our laws when you escaped camp with a loaded weapon. My orders are to bring back any fugitives to Camp Jaha, alongside any grounders we come across. She was the first.”

“She saved my life,” he’s saying but it sounds more like gasping as he holds himself up with his hands. But they aren’t listening, they’re just binding Lux’s arms and hauling her to her feet before they do the same to Bellamy and they are walking.

Lux doesn’t look at him and he doesn’t blame her.

She thinks he did this to her. She thinks he lead her into this trap and now he may never see his people again. Whatever trust they’d garnered, whatever progress they had made in the future of peace between their people was now dwindling with every step the pulled her towards Camp Jaha.

If she didn’t hate the Sky People before, she certainly did now.

He remembers Clarke’s words because they’re ringing in his head. So much has changed since he dragged Lincoln into the drop-ship. He was an idiot then, crossing lines that maybe didn’t need to be crossed. He had brought this down on them all.

And now when he is trying to fix it, the guards are only repeating history.

* * *

 

It’s nearly two days back to Camp Jaha and no matter how many times the guards try to get Lux to speak, she simply shoots them back a resentful glare. She’s pretending she doesn’t understand and he doesn’t blame her even though he doesn’t think it’s entirely wise. The guards are desperate, and Kane who wants to appear to be strong in his new position as chancellor, wants answers and he wants to prove that he can protect his people.

And Bellamy isn’t so sure that she’ll escape the worst interrogation they’ll have to offer. Their tools are more sophisticated than a seatbelt and scrap metal. Whatever she’ll endure will be much more painful. And he’s not so sure he can stand by and watch that.

He tries to tell her that, late one night when the guards aren’t paying attention, but he sees she’s not talking to him either. There is no doubt now that she thinks he was involved in her attack. He doesn’t waste time to argue the contrary because it will only get them both beat again. And she’s already looking weak from the bullet wound in her arm.

He asks, no he tells, the guards to bandage it and they do a haphazard job of wrapping it in some spare linen ripped from her own shirt. They tie it tight and Lux bites back a scream at the pain. He doesn’t see an exit wound which means the bullet is still lodged in there somewhere. He knows Clarke’s mom will help her, grounder or not so he counts on that as he tries to ignore the guilt he feels in the pit of his stomach.

When they finally do arrive at camp, he notices the change in leadership immediately. Dr. Griffin is now Chancellor whilst Kane tries his hand at peace with the Trigeda. Bellamy can’t help but feel like that wasn’t the best of ideas but his opinion doesn’t matter.

Chancellor Griffin pardons him, despite the protests of the guards who captured him in the woods. But she wants to know where Clarke is and Bellamy can’t give her the answer she wants. He can only tell her that they were lead into a trap and that’s how he was injured. She looks at his wound and then at Lux who is kneeling with her hands bound behind her back.

“You’re a healer?” she asks but Lux does not respond, nor does she acknowledge the question. Abby can take a hint and so she talks to Bellamy instead. “What happened out there? How did you get separated?”

“We were ambushed,” he explains. “The grounder who told us where our people were captured drew us a map. It lead us right into a den of reapers. We ran out of ammo first, and then we got separated. I was stabbed, I remember that much and then I tried to get the hell out of there. But poison on the blade didn’t let me get too far. She found me and healed the wound. Her name is Lux.”

“Lux,” Abby repeats and it’s nice when she says it, looking down at the girl with the dark hair and the hazel eyes. “Lux, I want to help you. Can I take a look at that shoulder?” she asks and Lux flinches away from Abby’s touch when her hand makes contact. “I was told you were shot. And healer to healer, we both know that wound has gone untreated long enough.”

Lux is reluctant, even when Bellamy’s eyes plead with her to let down some of her guard. She doesn’t consent and she doesn’t speak except in mumbles and even those aren’t in English. Abby grows impatient, and with each passing moment he knows she’s wondering if Clarke is in more danger, or if she’s even still alive.

And she wants answers. 

And Bellamy wants answers too but he’s not so sure he’s willing to watch them torture them out of Lux. He asks for the room, tells Abby that he needs to show her she’s safe here. Abby doesn’t want to agree to leave them in the room together but she does. Not before posting two guards outside the door - just in case.

When they are alone, Lux looks at him for the first time since the bunker. And she’s not happy, that much he can see. And it’s not like she doesn’t have a reason to be _but can she not direct her anger at him_ , he thinks.

“I didn’t know they were coming,” he explains. There’s no reaction. “I’m not as good of a liar as you seem to think I am,” he bites out because he’s tired of explaining himself to a stranger - to a grounder. “The Chancellor wants to help you,” he says. “She wants to help you like you helped me.”

“She wants to keep me alive so she can get _answers_ from me, there's a difference,” Lux finally speaks and her voice is hoarse. She hasn’t used it in days.

“You said you wanted to bring peace between our clans, did you not?” he reminds her and he can see she is annoyed by his need to bring it up.

“That was _before_ I was shot by your people,” she hisses. “You know I didn’t even attack those men until they shot me?”

“They aren’t used to all this,” Bellamy tries to excuse their behavior because he knows it’s easy for them to shoot first and ask questions later. But he sees how she’s dressed and she barely looks like the Trigeda grounders. She could easily be mistaken for one of them. And he thinks what if it had been Octavia. “Let her fix your arm,” he tells her and this time he’s not being polite about it. “I can’t help you if you’re dead.”

“You helped me right into this cage, spaceman,” she says bitterly and his frown deepens.

“ _You_ were the one who kept me in that--”

“Don’t you dare act like I was keeping you hostage,” she interrupts but she’s not shouting. She’s reminding him that he is alive because of her and he knows that. He hasn’t forgotten. “I put your clan before mine in going to the Trigeda. My brother told me I was making a mistake. I guess I should have listened to him.”

“No, Lux, listen to _me_ ,” he urges her, stepping towards her but she slides away. “Please. I can convince them to stop, to make peace if peace is feasible but you have to tell me that you learned something from the Trigeda. About where my people are? The Chancellor’s daughter is one of those people. If you can help us find her, find the others, they’ll have no choice but to trust you.”

Lux looks away but this time it’s not in defiance, it’s in guilt.

“You won’t find them,” she whispers and Bellamy’s heart is sinking in his chest.

“Why?” he asks quickly. But then he can barely bring himself to ask the second part. “Are they dead?” He hates even asking the question, even saying the words.

“As good as dead,” she replies but there is something that still holds onto hope inside of him.

“ _As good as dead_ , and dead are different things,” he corrects.

“Your people were taken by Mountain Men.” She speaks slowly. “Believe me,” she implores, this time her eyes locked on his. “You would rather they be dead than what is in store for them.”

“What is that place? Who are these men?” he’s asking and he feels his temper rising because he’s sick of hearing about these Mountain Men and if they have his people then he plans on getting them back.

“I can’t--” she starts to say as she looks away, her eyes shut and for the first time he sees real fear in her.

“You’ve been there haven’t you?” he asks cautiously and watches as she tries to steady her breathing. He realizes then that she’s trying not to cry. He’s not really sure what to do except stand there and wait. But she’s not going to answer. And he still needs to find his people. “Please,” he begs her and this time it’s the most polite so far. “If you could just tell me what we’re up against, how to get my people out of there.”

“You’ll risk more death,” she says quietly. “You have to understand something about the Mountain Men. You can’t sneak up on them. If you can even make it to their door, then it’s because they let you, because they want something from you. And they want something from all of us.”

“What?”

“They aren’t like _us_ ,” she tries to explain. “And they can’t be reasoned with.”

“Has anyone ever tried?”

“Yes,” she nearly shouts. “And it only ended in bloodshed. They don’t want peace, Bellamy Blake. They want us dead. _All_ of us. You and I are only an experiment to them. I way to fix their people.”

“Fix them? I dont--”

“I told you, they aren’t like us. They are called Mountain Men for a reason,” she reminds him. “They have lived under that mountain for so long that they are unable to live on the surface. They weren’t exposed to the same radiation that we were, that even you were on your spaceship.”

“But if they can’t come out of the mountain--”

“They can and they do. They wear these suits. I’ve only seen them outside the mountain once and--” she doesn’t finish because she remembers she doesn’t want to talk about it and he is starting to understand why. He hates looking at her like this. She’s miserable and she’s shot and her hands are tied behind her back. And he doesn’t like it.

So he walks out and tells the Chancellor to unbind her. That she is the only way they’ll find Clarke and the others. And Abby doesn’t waste a moment in rushing in and cutting the bindings herself. Lux still doesn’t speak but she allows Abby to look at her shoulder and it’s as bad as Bellamy expected.

“I’m going to have to get the bullet out,” she tells Lux who only nods. “It will be painful.” This doesn’t seem to concern Lux who simply stands and follows Abby to the medical wing of the crashed Ark that is currently in shambles.

There is a small table and it will do the job just fine. Abby suggests that Bellamy leave and Lux gives him a look that tells him to stay. Even without the look his feet are planted and he isn’t planning on letting her out of his sight until he knows someone else can be trusted not to fucking shoot her again. So he stands there, and he watches as Abby tries to remove the girl’s ratty tank, slowly up over her arms. Her eyes don’t leave Bellamy’s even when he thinks he should turn to give her privacy.

But he doesn’t and he sees more of her than he remembers from the spring. He sees things he didn’t notice before. Scars, long and brutal scars on her back and on her sides. A tattoo that runs up and down her ribcage. And three marks under her shoulder blade and he distinctly remembers these marks on Lincoln. Kill marks.

Abby tells her to lie down and Lux turns her face in the opposite direction of her wound and Abby’s scalpel. There is silence, and then the moment Abby’s tool pierces the skin Lux is cringing. There is no gentle way to dig out an bullet and without any kind of sedative, there is only full fledged pain as they sit there and Bellamy wishes he’d thought to bring some of her vials from back in the bunker. One of them was a sedative, he recalls. It would have knocked her out long enough that he wouldn’t have to watch her go through this agony.

He remembers Raven’s screams, the bullet ripped out from her back. Now Lux, her eyes clenched shut, misery in her movements and the deeper Abby goes the less and less she can hold back the scream.

And then it comes.

And Bellamy doesn’t know what else to do except grab her hand. She doesn’t want it but she takes it and she squeezes it as if she has no choice. And she tries not to cry out again because she wants them to know she’s tough. And she is, but she does scream and this time Abby finds the bullet and pulls it out and begins working on cleaning the wound.

The hard part is over and Lux just lies there, her eyes open and a slight tear trail falling from the corner of her left eye. Bellamy’s eyes follow it down her cheek until it disappears onto the table and she’s trying to catch her breath now. Her hand does not let go of his and Bellamy doesn’t try to pry it from her grasp. They just stay there like that and something changes between them.

He barely knows her, but he trusts her.

She must trust him too, he thinks, because she’s telling him things she is under no obligation to share. She’s helping him, risking her life for peace and he thinks that warrants at least his trust if not his gratitude as well.

And he thinks just maybe, she trusts him too.

And something about that thought makes it all easier to stand here, holding the hand of a grounder and feeling pity as she endures pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments I've received. I'm having a blast writing this story. Our favorite Mechanic is coming up in the next chapter...I'm excited even if you aren't.


	5. Caged

 

She’s been at Camp Jaha a total of two days and she hates every second of it.  The people look at her with only suspicion or disdain.  She can’t eat with them because they sit and stare and sometimes whisper and the discomfort is worse than the persistent ache in her slowly healing shoulder.  
  
So she spends most of her time alone, or as alone as she can be.  There are two guards stationed near here night and day and of course Bellamy stations himself there too to be sure they’re on their best behavior.  She doesn’t need that but she finds that she doesn’t mind it as much as maybe she should.    
  
She isn’t angry with him anymore but she is still reluctant to help them.  He wants his people and she wants to help him get them back.  But Mount Weather is a thing entirely.  It’s a place she can’t go back - she won’t go back.  The thought of it sends chills up her spine.  She places her hand over her chest momentarily.  Under her Sky People clothes there is a scar, a jagged scar as a permanent memento of her stay under the mountain.  
  
The thought of the tunnels makes her feel claustrophobic.  So she doesn’t spend much time inside because the concrete walls remind her of those same tunnels and that feeling creeps over her that she can no longer seem to keep at bay.  
  
So when the Ark chancellor wants to meet she does it outside, away from the citizens but out in the open where Lux can feel like she’s not a prisoner.  She still isn’t sure if her freedom is only a ruse, so she does everything on her own terms.  And thus far, they all comply.  Much to her surprise.  
  
“We need to know what we’re up against in there,” Chancellor Abby begins and there is a flash behind Lux’s eyes.  She shifts uncomfortably.  “Mount Weather is supposed to be a safe haven.  We told the kids to seek it out for shelter and supplies.  But if it’s not safe, if our kids are in danger we need to know that.”  
  
“They are in danger so long as they are inside those walls.  President Wallace will make them feel safe because then they will be easy to manipulate.  And then he will use them, just like he uses the others.  His people first.  That’s their motto,” she explains slowly.  
  
“What will he do to them?” Abby asks and her voice shakes as she does so.    
  
“They do experiments.  They want our blood.  My blood, your blood.  Anyone who has lived and survived the radiation as we have.  At this point they can’t even allow the radiation to breach their walls.  They are trapped down there in their concrete cage.  And now they want out, for good.”  
  
She ignores more flashes.  Screams and cries for help.  She pretends not to see the images of lifeless eyes and hopeless faces.  Because she can’t see that right now. She can’t stay strong if she remembers what it was like.  How it felt to hang upside down like a lab rat.    
  
“There won’t be much time,” Lux adds.  “If you want to move on Mount Weather,” she hesitates because it’s a death sentence no matter how long they wait around.  “You’ll need to go soon.  I don’t know how long they’ll keep them there.  Your kids are smart.  But Wallace is...he’s easy to like.  A politician through and through.  He’ll make them feel welcome.  He’ll make them want to say.”  
  
The Chancellor and her semblance of a council agree that they should do recon on Mount Weather before moving in.  She wants to send out a group to survey the area and Bellamy is the first to volunteer.  Abby isn’t thrilled about sending him back out there.  He’s still a child in her eyes but Bellamy counters that he’s twenty-three and knows the area better than they do.   
  
He doesn’t know it as well as Lux.  And so he volunteers her too which earns him a frown and Abby again disagrees because Lux is still healing from her surgery.  But most importantly, she’s a grounder, though no one says that part out loud.  But she can see that they’re all thinking it.  They don’t trust her yet.  Maybe Bellamy does, but that won’t get her past the gates.  He’s as defenseless as she is.   
  
While Lux neither wants to stay in Camp Jaha, nor go to Mount Weather, she assuredly doesn’t want someone deciding her fate for her.  So she decides to go, if only to help them not get themselves killed.  But she lets them talk it over, arguing amongst themselves while she temporarily removes herself from the conversation by sneaking out for a walk.   
  
It’s not much of a walk, she decides.  
  
The electric fence keeps her limited and once again she feels like she’s in a cage that is only getting smaller by the minute.  She can hear the bustling of the Ark clanspeople.  They think this is their life now and Lux knows there is so much more to come.  They can’t stay here, she thinks.  They aren’t safe here.  
  
Footsteps fall in line with her own and she knows from the large boots making imprints in the mud that it’s Bellamy.  He doesn’t speak at first.  He just walks and for that she’s thankful.  She needs a second to think, to breathe without having to answer to someone.  Without the stares.  
  
“Are we going to be able to do this?” he asks and his voice is low and full of hope.  “Am I going to see my people again?”   
  
“Do you want the truth?” she whispers and he places his hands on her shoulders and stops her.  He wants an honest answer, she knows that.  And he wants her to look at him.  But she can’t.  “I want to tell you that you’ll see them again.  I do,” she admits and she means it.  She looks up and he’s looking down at her, his eyes waiting, searching hers for the hope he wanted.  “Twenty-three of my people went in there.  And I was the only one who came out.”  
  
He’s surprised, she can see it in his expression and he still doesn’t know the worst part.  The part that is fifty Poquoson dead, the total it took to get her out of there.  She doesn’t want to talk about that and so she turns away, moving out from his grasp and she’s walking again.  It’s many moments before he follows.    
  
“Lux,” he says and her name on his lips has a strange sound.  His accent is foreign.  But it doesn’t sound unpleasant.  “Please.”  They stop again because he’s saying ‘please’ like he did back at the bunker and she feels everything in that single word.  “I need them back.”

Clarke.  
  
She remembers the girl whose name would have been the last word on Bellamy’s dying lips.  
  
It’s a full minute, maybe two before she gather the courage to speak.  She fears this decision, this choice she is going to make and what it could mean for her and her people.  It’s a risk.  But he’s standing there begging her and all of a sudden she can’t hear anything but her name and his voice and the boy with the brown eyes needs her too.  And she doesn’t know what else she can say at this point.  And so she says it.  
  
“I’ll help you.”  
  
He is pleased by this, or at least she thinks he is because the corners of his mouth twitch slightly and she think maybe he might smile.  He doesn’t.  There is something else on his mind, something that is distracting him from her answer.  He doesn’t look amused anymore, he looked sad.  There is longing in his expression and his brows furrow.  
  
“Do you think,” he starts and then stops as if he doesn’t plan to finish.  But something pushes him.  “If Lincoln brought one of the Ark people to your village, do you think they’d hurt her?”  
  
The question confuses her for a moment because she doesn’t remember him saying Lincoln was going to the Poquoson territory.  And she certainly doesn’t recall him mentioning one of his people with the Trigeda man.    
  
“It’s my sister, Octavia.  She was with him during the battle.  He told me he was taking her to your people,” he clarified and the name was just strange enough that it sparked a memory of a conversation that she had with Indra not many days ago.    
  
Octavia.  
  
She distinctly remembered the name and she saw the face of a young woman with long brown hair, covered in mud.  She’d stood out, as she recalled.  She’s an outsider.  And it suddenly makes sense.  Indra’s caution to speak in front of her, the familiarity in the girl’s features.  All this time Bellamy’s sister had been right under her nose and she’d never known it.  
  
“She’s safe,” she blurts out quickly and she realizes she interrupts him but she doesn’t think he’ll mind.  “Your sister.  I saw her at Indra’s camp.  And she was safe.”  
  
“Prisoner?” he asks and and she shakes her head.    
  
“No.  I didn’t think of it before, but I heard Indra use that name.  She was there and I didn’t notice that she was Sky Clan.  She looked like a Trigeda,” she laughs because she’s the one sitting here looking like she fell from the sky and Bellamy Blake’s sister is more grounder than she is now.  “She’ll be safe with them.”  
  
“And Lincoln?” he asks then and his concern for the grounder is only slight.    
  
“He wasn’t there, or at least not that I saw.  But Lincoln is a scout and several of their people were taken by Reapers.  It could be that he’s out looking for them,” she explains and he seems to half-heartedly accept this.  “I promise you that she will be taken care of.  Indra is like a mother to me.  If she wanted to make an enemy of your sister then she would not have been walking around camp with the rest of them.”  
  
He seems to accept this but only because he doesn’t really have much choice.  Lux notices the same look in his eyes as he had when he speaks of Clarke.  These women are important to him.  
  
And it is then, for some unknown reason to her, that she decides she’s going to get them back for him, whatever it might take.  
  


* * *

 

She finds the girl intriguing, which is more than she can say for anyone else around here.  The girl hobbles around but is always busy.  Even now she’s busy and even though Lux knows this, she decides to talk to her anyways.  The girl doesn’t seem bothered by her presence and she answers Lux’s questions.  And when she doesn’t answer them, Lux just sits there and watches her work.  
  
Her name is Raven, a name Lux finds beautiful.  
  
She doesn’t know who brings up Clarke.  But once the name is spoken Lux can’t seem to let it go.  Raven says Clarke is good at saving lives.  Without her they all might have died.  There is irony in her voice and when Lux points that out Raven laughs.    
  
“Clarke and I didn’t start off on the best of terms,” she tries to explain and Lux doesn’t let her drop it.  “We’re very different.  We came from different walks of life on the Ark.  We all did.  Clarke was difference.  And a lot of us, we didn’t like her.  Bellamy calls her ‘Princess’, so that should tell you enough right there.”  
  
“Because she’s important?” Lux asks, confused, and Raven chuckles again.  
  
“Because she was privileged, back on the Ark.  Whether or not that makes her important, I don’t know.  But she proved herself, to everyone.  Even to me.”  
  
“Why did she have to prove herself to you?”  
  
Raven doesn’t want to answer and Lux knows people well enough to understand the expression.  It’s clear it has to do with a boy.  But when she asks if it was Bellamy, Raven only finds this more amusing.  Lux isn’t sure why because surely she too knows that Bellamy cares for Clarke.    
  
She talks about Finn Collins, but she keeps glancing away, towards the work station where the engineer is concentrating on something that makes sparks.  His name is Wick and she finds this name to be strange.  Lux has yet to meet him but she knows he’s intelligent, that he knows Sky Clan technology in a way that reminds her of Sol.  She likes the way Raven looks at this man who seems skilled with his hands and even more skilled with his smirks.    
  
And then the questions come, and this time they’re directed at Lux.  
  
“Why’d you help him,” is the first and it takes Lux by surprise because she still isn’t sure how to answer that when she asks herself the same thing.  “He would have died,” Raven continues.  “If you hadn’t found him.  And--and that would have been a shame.  He’s a good guy underneath it all.”  
  
“I know,” Lux whispers and it feels involuntary.  “I don’t know why I did it.  I keep telling myself I shouldn’t have.”  Her look says she wants to know why.  She’s not sure she is ready to explain, if she’ll ever be able to tell her about her motivations that still seem so unclear.  But Lux can see she’s asking because she wants to know if she can trust her.  And so Lux tries.  “My clan wanted nothing to do with yours.  The quarrel was between you and the Trigeda.  Our leaders made it known that anyone involving the Poquoson in your war would be banished.”  
  
“Is that why you were banished?” Raven interrupts and Lux wishes it was.    
  
“No.  I wanted nothing to do with your clan.  But my brother, Jericho--” she pauses, remembering her brother’s eyes, his temperament, his rare ability to make her laugh.  “He dragged our people into it anyways, against orders.  I thought he was such an idiot and I tried to convince him to back off, to leave it be, but he was stubborn and I can’t say I don’t understand why he did it.  He thought he was protecting the clan and his future as leader once our mother moved on.”  
  
Raven watches her as she speaks but Lux is in another world.  She is reliving her last moments with Jericho, the anger in her voice as she argued with him in the forest, trying to keep him from getting himself killed.  And then she remembers Axil.  
  
“I was--to be married,” she tries to explain but she feels a knot growing slowly in her throat and she can’t seem to swallow.  “Axil was going to lead as well, once Michael and my mother stepped down.  He and Jericho would be the new leaders of our clan.  Our marriage was political, to keep the factions from growing restless over who to follow.  I certainly never planned to love him.  I didn’t even like him much when we were kids.  But he was always there and somehow--” she doesn’t finish because now the lump in her throat is also tears threatening to fall and she can’t have that.  
  
“You fell in love with him,” Raven finishes and Lux nods because it’s true.  She loved Axil and she thinks he probably loved her too.  But none of that matters now.  
  
“He went with Jericho, because of me.  To fight your people and neither of them made it back alive, and that’s because of me too.”    
  
Her fault.  It’s ringing in her head again.  
  
“If he loved you, I’m sure he would have done anything for you.  Even if it meant his life.”  She’s trying to be nice and Lux appreciates that.    
  
She’s right.  Maybe Axil did love her after all.  He didn’t want to love her.  He’d made that clear.  But things had changed between them and maybe neither of them planned on caring.  But they had.  And it was over before it started.  
  
But none of that matters now, she can’t let it matter because she has a job to do.  So she forgets the dead boy and his blue eyes and she thinks of more important things.  
  
Like getting out of here.  
  


* * *

 

Bellamy is angry when Abby begins to second guess letting Lux leave camp.  She thinks they are taking a risk in letting a grounder go, but Bellamy informs her that without said grounder, they’re risking much more and that it would be a huge fucking mistake to leave her behind.    
  
Abby, in turn, informs him that she doesn’t like his use of profanity.  But she does reluctantly agree to let them go, with weapons and only under supervision.  Lux silently thanks him with her eyes and Bellamy can see that she’s tired.    
  
They leave before dawn on the next day because Bellamy can’t wait any longer and he watches as Lux visibly relaxes the moment she steps outside of the gates.  He understands because he can feel it too.  The weight is still there, and it won’t go away until he sees Clarke - and the others.  But the load lightens and they’re no longer in the cage.  
  
They’re free.  
  
Or as free as they can be with twenty guards watching their every move.  They still watch Lux as if she’s their prisoner.  And he can understand it even if he doesn’t like it.  Because she’s a grounder.  And to them, grounders mean death.  
  
She walks with purpose, leading them in the direction which suddenly seems familiar and Bellamy recognizes that it’s the direction of the bunker.  She doesn’t speak, not even to him as she moves and every so often she’ll stop them as she listens, watches and waits.  And then they move on.  
  
The pact must have held, he thinks, when they make it an entire day without seeing another soul.  The forest is eerily empty, or perhaps that is the way they want it to seem.  He never saw a grounder unless they wanted to be seen.  But it’s clear from Lux’s glances and her stiff body language that they are being followed.    
  
She doesn’t let on to the others that the Trigeda are lurking somewhere close by, watching their every movements.  But she does, however, give Bellamy a reassuring nod when their eyes meet and he feels his grip loosen ever so slightly on his rifle.  
  
They camp for the night near an abandoned ruin.  It was a building once; however, now it’s only a few walls standing but not connected.  She keeps watch and so does he.  Some of the guard don’t sleep because the grounder might escape, and from their suspicious glances in his direction, they think he might help her.  
  
But they just sit there, on the outskirts of the small, makeshift camp.  Neither speak for what seems like hours.  There is just the crackling of the fire and the night sky filled with stars.  Bellamy hasn’t had much opportunity to look at them, he realizes.  But the longer he sits there he can’t help but notice.  And it’s not such a bad view from Earth, he thinks.  
  
“We’re not far,” she whispers when it seems like they might just sit there in silence for the rest of the night.  Bellamy brings his gaze down to her and realizes she’s already looking over at him.  It’s dark, in their spot on the log outside of camp, but he can still see the outline of her face and the solemness in her expression.   
  
It reminds him briefly of Clarke.  
  
“We’ll reach Mount Weather around midday,” she adds and he isn’t sure what to say because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen when they get there so he nods.  “I have information, in a book I keep but it’s back at the bunker.  It’s not far out of the way, only a few miles.  But I think the information will be vital.  I have a few maps marking several of their tunnels.  And some entry points that might be useful.”  
  
It is useful, he thinks.  He knows nothing about the mountain or it’s inhabitants.  He knows nothing.    
  
But she’s been through it all.  And he wants to ask more but he can tell she’s expecting him to ask and her walls are already up.  She’s stone and her hazel eyes are no longer on his, but this time the ground.  
  
And he suddenly regrets not speaking because it’s the last time he hears her voice before the morning.  
  
He’s tired the next day because he didn’t get any sleep the night before.  He sat next to her as she drifted off and refused to find the same relief behind his own eyes.  He didn’t trust that the guards would leave them alone and perhaps he didn’t trust that she was actually asleep either.  If he let himself doze off for a few hours of subpar shut eye, he knew there was a possibility he would wake up and find her gone.  
  
So he sat there, awake and alert, or as alert as one can be when they’ve had barely any sleep in the last few days.  
  
The bunker looks slightly different covered in daylight.  It’s partially hidden by shrubs and overgrown vines.  But when he nearly stubs his toe on that damn candlestick on the ground, he knows they’re in the right place.  He almost laughs when he sees it and he picks it up and turns it over in his hands a few times.  Lux is watching him and he thinks she might smile as well.  But she doesn’t.  She’s the only one who understands why he finds the meaningless item so amusing.  
  
So he puts it back down on the ground and watches as Lux makes her way into the bunker, despite the protests of a few of the guards.  Bellamy assures them she can be trusted and she leaves the door open to assure them of the same.  He watches the hatch for a long time, for what seems like an hour before everyone is looking at him with impatient glances and anxious pacing.    
  
So he climbs in as well.  
  
And he’s not expecting what he finds.    
  
He finds her clothes first, strewn across the floor as if she’s thrown them, piece by piece.  He follows the sound of a running shower and hushed sobs until he pulls back the curtain and finds her.  He’s briefly reminded of the first moment he saw her, pressing a knife against her throat and her unyielding expression.  And now all he sees is a broken woman, sitting on the floor with her face against the tile wall with tears falling down her cheeks.  
  
She’s not completely disrobed this time, but what she is wearing is soaked but she doesn’t seem to care.  She doesn’t acknowledge that he’s standing there nor does she seem to care that they are once again in this awkward position.  So he turns off the water and she’s shivering.  He realizes the water is ice cold as her bottom lip begins to turn blue.  
  
He grabs a towel and wraps it around her, rubbing her arms up and down as she sits and she sobs.  He hides the fact that he is growing impatient in finding his people and opts for a bit of tenderness instead.  He helps her to her feet when she refuses to let him carry her and she wipes the tears from her face.  Her breathing is still staggered but her sobs are growing quiet.    
  
“I can’t do it,” she says then and there is fear in her voice as it shakes.  “I can’t go back there.  I--I can’t, I’m sorry. I can’t,” she repeats again and again until he places his hands on either side of her face and her eyes are locked on his.  
  
“Hey--Lux,” he says and it’s louder than he intends but she seems sober slightly.  “I need you,” he says and it sounds odd to say it to anyone out loud.  He wonders if he had said it to Clarke, if she’d have waited for him to close the dropship door.  Maybe not, he thinks, because she did what she had to do. She did what he would have done.  Or least what he thinks he would have done.  “I need you,” he repeats, this time with more force.  “You are the only way I can see my people again.”  
  
“Clarke,” she whispers and it’s a small, hoarse cry and he nods.  
  
“Yes.  Clarke.  I need you to help me find her, remember?”  She thinks about it for only a second before nodding and she wipes her eyes again and then places her hands over his where they are still resting on her face. And she pulls them down slowly until they are at his side.  And then she removes her hands as well.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes and he finds that more frustrating than the crying.  He doesn’t need this Lux.  He needs the Lux who was fierce.  The Lux who could take down any man in the blink of an eye.  He needed her to put herself back together and help him.  
  
And then she’s ok.  Or at least she pretends to be as she dresses herself and he watches her slow movements as she pulls off a pair of folded trousers from a shelf.  He can’t help but stare at the scars that trail up and down her back and he can’t bring himself to finally ask how she got them.  
  
She redresses her shoulder wound when she finishes, globbing on the same unpleasant muck she’d placed on his stitches days ago.  It’s then that she insists to look at said stitches and he reluctantly agrees.  He feels uncomfortable lying back on the cot, as if they’d and never left and he was still in this cage.  As if she was still a grounder and he was better than her.  
  
But they both know that’s not true now.  
  
Bellamy flips through her notebook and is overwhelmed by the vastness of knowledge she’s accumulated in a seemingly generic notebook.  From maps to remedies, she has everything sketched out in varying detail.  He has to admit he’s impressed.  
  
Mount Weather is more complex than he realized.  Her maps are complex and there are more tunnels than he would have ever thought.  But she explains to him each section and once her eyes dry, she proposes that they get back to the group and devise a plan.    
  
He looks at her for a long moment because he’s not so sure she’s ready but she isn’t waiting around for his approval.  She turns to leave but she stops when his hand encircles her wrist.  He doesn’t know why he always feels the need to touch her, to make it so she stops leaving him standing there staring like he’s an idiot.  She turns and she glances down at his hand on her wrist and she waits. But he isn’t sure what to say only ‘thank you’ and that just won’t suffice.  
  
“You don’t have to say anything,” she says and now he’s sure she’s reading his mind.  “It won’t happen again,” she adds and he knows she means the breakdown.  But he wouldn’t blame her if it did.  Because he knows what it’s like to feel that type of helplessness and fear.  And it’s fucking awful.  
  
“We should go,” is all he can say back and he kicks himself because it was a stupid thing to say.    
  
But she follows him and he’s glad she can’t see his face because he feels dumb and he’s sure his expression says it all.  That he’s scared, that he’s confused, and that he has no fucking idea what he’s gotten himself into.  
  
  
  
  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter closer to getting to Mount Weather - I promise more characters will be introduced in the next chapter when Bellamy and Lux (and their guards) get to the mountain. I hope you are all enjoying it thusfar. I am absolutely enjoying writing these characters and getting to hear your feedback. You're all so inspiring! Thanks!

**Author's Note:**

> This is a non-traditional romance story. There is Bellarke but not in the fluffy happy way. Warning - Bellarke doesn't get a happy ending in the romantic sense, but it's ok because he learns to be happy. Some OC's aren't crap...hopefully mine are some of the good ones. I ship Bellarke, but this story is a more pessimistic take on it. Again, this is overall a Bellamy/OC story with unrequited Bellarke. 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts!


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